Conservatives Take Turns Standing Up to the Speaker

WASHINGTON — Those in the circle of fiery House conservatives who are spearheading a fiscal showdown that threatens to shut down the government see themselves in vaunted company.

“It only takes one with passion — look at Rosa Parks, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King,” said Representative Ted Yoho of Florida, one of the rank-and-file House Republicans who have risen up to challenge their party’s leadership over whether to confront the Senate and President Obama with their demands to cut off funding for the president’s health care law. “People with passion that speak up, they’ll have people follow them because they believe the same way, and smart leadership listens to that.”

Along with Mr. Yoho, a rotating cast of characters — often backbench newcomers whom few have heard of outside their districts, and who were elected on a Tea Party wave — has emerged to challenge Speaker John A. Boehner’s leadership at every turn.

Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, a libertarian-leaning sophomore Republican, led the revolt against the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance programs, which Mr. Boehner had strongly endorsed. Representative Scott Rigell, Republican of Virginia, complicated his leadership’s support for the use of force in Syria when he drafted a letter demanding that the president first consult Congress.

And on the current fiscal fight over financing the government, it was Representative Tom Graves, Republican of Georgia, who amassed 80 House supporters, enough to force his party’s leadership to tie the money needed to keep the government running after the end of this month to defunding the president’s signature health care law. Representative Thomas Massie, a freshman Republican from Kentucky elected with the help of Ron Paul supporters, had the temerity last week to question his leadership’s initial proposal, calling it a “hocus-pocus” gimmick that would have allowed the Senate to easily strip out the language defunding the president’s health care plan before sending Mr. Obama a clean financing bill.

The House is to vote Friday on the funding plan. In advance of the vote and the clash to come with the Senate, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, a chief advocate of tying government funding to the health law, on Thursday thanked Mr. Graves and House conservatives in general — “for sticking their neck out.”

Maverick Republicans have taken on the leadership on other issues as well. In January, Representative Tim Huelskamp, Republican of Kansas, helped lead a failed attempt to remove Mr. Boehner as speaker, and Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, became an outspoken critic of any attempt to overhaul immigration laws — a priority for Mr. Boehner. Even the farm bill, with decades of bipartisan camaraderie behind it, fell to an emboldened Tea Party wing, this time led by Representative Marlin Stutzman, an Indiana Republican who demanded that the broad agriculture measure be stripped of its food-stamp provision, which has been part of the law since 1973.

“In the multitude of counselors, there is wisdom,” said Representative Mark Meadows, a freshman Republican from North Carolina.

This unruly and highly vocal group of conservative legislators has been empowered in the escalating fight by the fact that Republicans hold only a narrow majority in the House; depending on the issue, this core conservative wing can either be persuaded to vote with their party, or they can muster up enough of a coalition to block any legislation with which they do not fully agree.

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Representative Ted Yoho of Florida wants to cut off funding for the health care law.CreditAssociated Press

The decision by the House leadership to mollify the most conservative members of its conference on the latest fiscal fight has created both tension between Tea Party members in the House and the Senate, and underscored the challenges Mr. Boehner faces this year from his party’s more conservative and libertarian wing.

“We’ve got a diverse caucus, frankly,” Mr. Boehner said, when asked at a news conference Thursday who, exactly, was running his conference. “Republicans, by their very nature, are a bit more independent than our colleagues across the aisle.”

Mr. Boehner added: “And so whenever we’re trying to put together a plan, you know, we’ve got 233 members, all of whom have their own plan. It’s tough to get them on the same track.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, did not mince words Thursday in calling the group a bunch of “legislative arsonists” who had “hijacked” the Republican Party.

The ascendance of the Republicans’ Tea Party wing has in no way been smooth, nor is it guaranteed to last. Republicans in swing districts recognize that their party’s lurch to the right jeopardizes their own political futures — and the power of the party nationally.

“There’s no question that the biggest challenge to the Republican Party is dealing with our far right wing,” said Representative Michael G. Grimm, Republican of New York, a perennial target of the Democrats.

Senior Republicans say the Tea Party wing may have sown seeds of decline this week when Mr. Cruz, one of its brightest stars, released a statement Wednesday saying that Senate Democrats would almost certainly succeed in stripping language from the stopgap spending measure defunding the Affordable Care Act. “At that point, House Republicans must stand firm, hold their ground and continue to listen to the American people,” wrote Mr. Cruz, who almost single-handedly started the push to tie further government financing to gutting the health care law.

Mr. Cruz’s statement swept through Republican ranks like a wrecking ball. Representative Tim Griffin of Arkansas took to Twitter to declare that his Republican counterparts in the Senate were “good at getting Facebook likes, and town halls, not much else. Do something.”

Representative Sean P. Duffy, Republican of Wisconsin, said on Twitter that after the House had agreed to send the stopgap measure to the Senate, Mr. Cruz and Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and Mr. Cruz’s partner in the drive to “Defund Obamacare,” refused to fight for the cause they had championed. “Wave white flag and surrender,” Mr. Duffy wrote.

“When push came to shove, he turned out to be a real coward,” Mr. Grimm said of Mr. Cruz.

That anger could prove to be a moment of self-reflection, senior House Republicans said, about who is leading the Tea Party wing and where. On Thursday, Mr. Boehner seemed eager to relinquish responsibility for the fight, at least briefly, telling reporters that after the House votes on Friday, “This fight will move over to the Senate, where it belongs.”

Mr. Cruz, in the wake of sniping by members of his own party, doubled down on his promises to fight for the bill in the Senate. “I will do everything necessary and anything possible to defund Obamacare,” he said, while acknowledging that, if Republicans prove victorious, “it is going to be because House Republicans have stood up and showed the courage that they are showing right now, and that they continue to stand up.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Conservatives Take Turns Standing Up to the Speaker. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe